Bone-cutting surgical saws, such as sagittal or oscillating type surgical saws, cut most effectively at very high speeds, such as for example, 10000-40000 cycles per minute. These high speeds introduce high levels of vibration and can cause blade wander during a cut. Accordingly, blade cuts typically have a thickness considerably greater than the width of the actual blade. For example, a cutting blade having a 0.015 inch thickness may be unable to cut a groove having a width of less than 0.030 inch. In addition, because the saws operate at such high speeds, the excessive vibration can quickly fatigue a surgeon's hand or wrist. As fatigue sets in, maintaining the same preciseness and accuracy may become more difficult.
A contributing problem is the way the blade attaches to the saw. Conventional systems use pins located close to the centerline of the blade attachment portion, resulting in a short moment arm for driving the blade. Accordingly, during irregular cutting, such as a while making a curved cut or a cut not along the path of the normal oscillating path of the saw blade, the blade can become dislodged, possibly causing some blade loosening. This can result in cuts having a width considerably larger than the blade width.
The devices disclosed herein overcome one or more of short-comings in the prior art.